And, even as she spoke, there was the sound of tearing woodwork. The struggling figures stood out for an instant with startling clearness—then disappeared like the sudden shutting off of a moving picture. And the whole night seemed to wince at the thud that followed.
"We must go down," the man's voice said, breaking the silence in an awestruck whisper. "There is a way round the other side."
They followed him round the edge of the pit. It seemed like walking round the world. They descended a steep slope—and then, in the vast gray silence, a circle of pale faces surrounded the dead bodies of Oscar Winslowe, and John Tranter.
CHAPTER XXXIII
Last Truths
"My friends," said Monsieur Dupont, "you have already heard a great part of the story. John Tranter was the son of Oscar Winslowe. He was mad. He was, as he called himself truly, a Beauty-Killer. That strange lust he inherited from his mother, who had been robbed of all she cared for, and hoped for, in life by a beautiful woman, and rendered insane three months before his birth. It was a most pathetic tragedy. We shall now hear——"
"One moment," Inspector Fay interrupted. "As I represent the police here, I should be glad to know, before we go any further, whose house I am in."
"Pardon me," Monsieur Dupont apologized. "I had forgotten. You are in the house of Doctor Lessing," he inclined himself towards the doctor, "who will in due course repeat to you a statement which he made to me yesterday. This lady is Miss Masters, who was Tranter's nurse. Mrs. Astley-Rolfe and Mr. Copplestone—which, I fancy, is not his correct name—you know already."